


The past is always tense, the future perfect

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, mother knows best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 09:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19460731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: Minisa sees more of her girls than Hoster ever did, and moves to avert a crisis before it can happen.Minisa, Lysa, and a different road to the Eyrie.





	The past is always tense, the future perfect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [clutzycricket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clutzycricket/gifts).



**** “Come here to me, my darling,” Minisa says, wondering if Lysa will ever listen to anything she does not wish to hear. “Come here and sit with me a while.”

Lysa’s face falls and she makes no effort to hide it. She feels very hard done by for being neither eldest nor heir, but that is no excuse for ill manners.

“Come here,” Minisa says, a little more sternly. “Now, Lysa.”

Lysa gives up her chase of  _ the boy,  _ and stomps inelegantly back to Minisa, abandoning the hallway for MInisa’s favourite antechamber - it looks out across the water. She flounces down onto the other end of the bench, and folds her arms and pouts as petulantly as possible. 

She is fourteen now. Too old for such childishness, and older than Cat was when Hoster swore their daughter to Rickard Stark’s boy. Perhaps if Lysa has a life ahead of her as Cat does, she might settle. 

She might know better than to follow after  _ the boy _ like a lovesick fool. It does not suit her, and it does not become any daughter of Riverrun to show such overweaning favour to a silly, vain boy of no means and less future.

“Sit with me, my darling,” Minisa says, “and listen closely to what your papa and I have planned.”

Lysa’s sourpuss mouth twitches, but Minisa knows her girls. She knows that Lysa’s dislike of her father alone will make her pay attention, if only so she might complain and lament his cruel treatment.

Hoster has always favoured Cat, who so resembles his late lady mother, who has so much of Minisa’s own calm and patience. Brynden loves Cat best, too, and Edmure, and while Minisa has always found Cat’s company easiest of her three children, she loves them all the same.

Minisa’s love has never been enough for Lysa, who would have everyone’s love and the power such a thing can bring, too. Minisa can see something of long-past Barbra and Bethany, great-aunts on Hoster’s side, and of sweet Missy, too, all of whom had the love of a King and none of whom were satisfied with just that.

Would Lysa be satisfied if they found her a King? Minisa doubts it, somehow, unless that King was Petyr Baelish raised on high.

“You know that Lord Arryn of the Eyrie has visited,” Minisa says, and no more. Lysa knows well that she will have no more story unless she corrects her manners, and so she huffs and she puffs and she sets her skirts to rights. She even manages something like a smile, no matter how false it is. “Have you considered why?”

“Something for Cat’s sake, no doubt,” Lysa says, dour as an old woman. “Or for precious Edmure’s.”

“Poor Lysa, always forgotten,” Minisa scolds, and the silly girl does not even have the good grace to look cowed. “And what if I told you that Lord Arryn visited for  _ your _ sake, my darling?”

Too late, Minisa realises that she ought to have been clearer. Lysa perks up hopefully, as if Lord Jon Arryn might waste his time and his influence in coming all the way to Riverrun from his cloudy perch to arrange the marriage of a little boy who has claim to a meagre patch of all the lands under his domain. Nothing else but the hope of having  _ the boy _ brightens Lysa’s face to that particular shade of pink, and Minisa wishes against all hope that Cat’s overburdening of sense was shared a little with her brother and sister.

“Lord Arryn’s nephew, Elbert,” Minisa says. “He is his heir, a fine young man - he is friends with Cat’s Brandon, and has heard a great deal about you. Lord Arryn was here on Ser Elbert’s behalf, and yours.”

The pink drains from Lysa’s face.

“You cannot make me,” she says. “You cannot  _ sell me!  _ I should be allowed-”

“You should be  _ allowed, _ ” Minisa says, disappointed. “Sweet girl - who do you think you are, that you should be given such boons as no other girl would ever receive? Do you think Cat chose Brandon Stark? That I chose your lord father? No, but I have made the best of things, and found love and joy with your father. Cat is anxious about Winterfell, about the change ahead of her, but she understands the honour. She understands how  _ lucky _ she is to have such a fine match ahead of her.”

“Cat is always  _ so good,” _ Lysa snarls. “Whereas I-”

“You are just as blessed as your sister,” Minisa says. “Lady of the Eyrie stands on a par with Lady of Winterfell, and some would say higher than Lady of Riverrun.”

Lysa opens her mouth to protest, but-

“And  _ certainly _ higher than Lady of the Fingers,” Minisa says. “Such a thing was never meant for you, little one. You know better than that.”

“It could be.  _ He  _ could be.”

“Petyr Baelish does not want you, Lysa.” Is it cruel, to shatter Lysa’s heart? Perhaps. But to shatter it now means it might be remade, and laid in Elbert Arryn’s hands. “It is not you he stares after, my girl. It is not  _ you _ he hungers for.”

And something tells Minisa that it is not truly Cat that  _ the boy _ hungers for, either. Minisa is a daughter of Harrenhall, after all, and even without her father as Lord Whent Minisa had any number of proud little lordlings who sought her hand simply for the influence such a tie might bring.

How relieved she had been, to find Hoster. How lucky she had been to befriend Brynden, who convinced their father of the merits of seeking a local bride without a powerful father for Hoster, to neutralise the Brackens and the Blackwoods.

“It could be,” Lysa says. “He may come to love me.”

“He won’t,” Minisa says, feeling as cruel as Hoster sometimes is when Lysa acts out, when Edmure’s lessons prove more difficult for him than they might for another boy. “A boy like that will  _ never  _ love a girl like you, Lysa. What do you bring him? No power, no title, no lands and certainly not the kind of dowry he thinks he would be owed for taking the  _ second  _ daughter in place of the first.”

“You are just as bad as he is,” Lysa snarls, tears flooding her huge doe eyes. Lysa’s tears have always come at will, though, and Minisa stopped minding them a very long time ago. “Just as unkind and as  _ selfish,  _ only ever thinking of what will benefit House Tully and never about the happiness-”

“You would have no happiness with a husband who pined for your sister and could not afford your exceedingly expensive tastes. Now stop weeping and start  _ thinking.  _ You are not a stupid girl, Lysa, except when it comes to this boy. He is not worth your time. Think, Lysa! Think!”

“I think,” Lysa says, “that you wish for another Cat, who thinks only of  _ Family, Duty, Honour,  _ and that you do not want me at all, because I seek something more from life than simply to do my cold, lonely duty.”

“Do I seem lonely? Your father, or your nuncle? You see only what suits your own pride and self-importance, my girl, and such foolishness suits you ill.”

“Why, because I am daughter to proud, clever Lord Hoster?”

“No,” Minisa says. “Because you are daughter to  _ me. _ I would never have been such a silly twit, and I will not allow it any longer in you.”

Lysa flushes scarlet, clashing horribly with her hair, and she is just opening her mouth to argue when someone knocks on the frame of the open door.

Catelyn is smiling, uncertain and sweet-tempered, and she has a basket in hand.

“Cook was feeling generous,” she says, proffering the basket like a shield. “I thought we might share?”

Lysa’s scarlet has faded to a merry pink, and her tears have given way to a tremulous looking joy. Minisa’s own face has already softened from stern disapproval to gentleness, and Cat will never notice anything other than what is shown to her. 

For such an observant girl, she does miss an awful lot.

“Come, sweetling, and sit with us,” Minisa says, tugging Lysa close to make room for Cat at the other end of the bench. “I was just sharing happy news with our little Lysa.”

“Oh?” Cat says, settling the basket in Lysa’s lap before turning to straighten her own skirts. “What news is this, Mother?”

“Our lord father has had an offer for my hand,” Lysa says, “from Lord Arryn, on behalf of his heir. Isn’t that wonderful, Cat?”

“It is, Lysa, truly it is!” Cat says, thrilled as Lysa should be at this bright future. “Oh, to be Lady of the Eyrie - and the Arryns have always enjoyed such favour at court, too, just  _ think!” _

“And the distance from the Eyrie to Winterfell is not so desperately long, either,” Minisa says, because for all she complains and cries, even Lysa is not immune to Cat’s good humour. “Think how you will be able to visit, my girls - you can stay near as close as you are now.”

Lysa’s pout, stretched out into a smile, twitches. Minisa sees it, and thinks _ \- I must keep an eye on her, even now. _

_ I must keep an eye on the boy, too. _


End file.
